Arcadeflow theme v 17.5 [Release] Updated 17 December 2024

[zpaolo11x]

A question for people using Arcadeflow as a console layout... sooner or later I'll implement a "boxart" version of the theme, I'm sure, but since then I'm tweaking it to fit console games better.

I need a way to sense if the current system is an arcade, a console or an handheld. My idea was to use the "System" field in the emulator setting. Is it feasible or how do you use that?

The idea is that if the System field contains "Arcade" then the theme will work as usual, if it contains "Console" it will sense the orientation of the screen from the snapshots (Vectrex I didn't forget about you) and adapt some parts of the UI, if it contains "Handheld" it will stop correcting the aspect-ratio of the screenshot since handhelds usually have square pixels.

[Enkak]

A question for people using Arcadeflow as a console layout... sooner or later I'll implement a "boxart" version of the theme, I'm sure, but since then I'm tweaking it to fit console games better.

I need a way to sense if the current system is an arcade, a console or an handheld. My idea was to use the "System" field in the emulator setting. Is it feasible or how do you use that?

The idea is that if the System field contains "Arcade" then the theme will work as usual, if it contains "Console" it will sense the orientation of the screen from the snapshots (Vectrex I didn't forget about you) and adapt some parts of the UI, if it contains "Handheld" it will stop correcting the aspect-ratio of the screenshot since handhelds usually have square pixels.

I don't mind working that way, specially because I intend to have later a custom build using only your theme. The "system" field was used before for the gamesdb scrapping information/meta data but since that isn't working so well (or at all) lately these days I use only the import extras for that purpose so for me the "System" field feels like a good idea. I already had "Arcade" in the main system field so it would be easy to change the others.

The snapshots hack is working very good as you can see in the print, thx again. You can also notice that the theme is already picking info automatically from the xml list

In my snes9x setup, how do I tell AM that it has to read the xml list file? And how do I generate it?

Here I created in AM root folder another called "meta" and put there all the xml files. Then you can use import extras field like this:

import_extras        meta\Super Nintendo Entertainment System (custom).xml

I downloaded the original (mine says custom because I'm adding manually the number of players missing in consoles lists) xml list from here: https://hyperlist.hyperspin-fe.com/

Some are outdated but you can get newer versions in their forums. It's good for testing.

[zpaolo11x]

Here I created in AM root folder another called "meta" and put there all the xml files. Then you can use import extras field like this:

import_extras        meta\Super Nintendo Entertainment System (custom).xml

I downloaded the original (mine says custom because I'm adding manually the number of players missing in consoles lists) xml list from here: https://hyperlist.hyperspin-fe.com/

Some are outdated but you can get newer versions in their forums. It's good for testing.

Wow that worked, I got a nice SNES setup with all metadata and it looks pretty good. Most consoles look nice with the Arcadeflow style of snapshot + wheel artwork, with one notable exception: Game Boy :O All those grey snapshots look very uninspiring even with the game title overlayed I'll see how it looks if you load box arts instead of snapshots, and video snaps loaded later on, but a box-art mode is probably better for console games :/

[Enkak]

Here I created in AM root folder another called "meta" and put there all the xml files. Then you can use import extras field like this:

import_extras        meta\Super Nintendo Entertainment System (custom).xml

I downloaded the original (mine says custom because I'm adding manually the number of players missing in consoles lists) xml list from here: https://hyperlist.hyperspin-fe.com/

Some are outdated but you can get newer versions in their forums. It's good for testing.

Wow that worked, I got a nice SNES setup with all metadata and it looks pretty good. Most consoles look nice with the Arcadeflow style of snapshot + wheel artwork, with one notable exception: Game Boy :O All those grey snapshots look very uninspiring even with the game title overlayed I'll see how it looks if you load box arts instead of snapshots, and video snaps loaded later on, but a box-art mode is probably better for console games :/

Glad to hear that it worked

Share some screenshots when you can to see the evolution of it. :p

Not sure how box-art will look because of different dimensions and so on. I'm having some problems with it on some extra layouts for other theme because SNES are rectangular, others are squared, etc. For Arcadeflow screenshot + wheel artwork is looking really great and promising. Also makes everything balance and connect with arcade main theme of course.

[zpaolo11x]

Share some screenshots when you can to see the evolution of it. :p

Not sure how box-art will look because of different dimensions and so on. I'm having some problems with it on some extra layouts for other theme because SNES are rectangular, others are squared, etc. For Arcadeflow screenshot + wheel artwork is looking really great and promising. Also makes everything balance and connect with arcade main theme of course.

Well I thought that my Layout could adapt to vertical/horizontal/square box art with some minimum cropping, but you are probably right I should stick with the Arcade look and feel...

Attached you can see the layout in SNES mode, looks pretty good with the horizontal screenshots. The other attachment is the Game Boy display... it's pretty bad, I thought using square thumbs would be a good idea but still the issue is that everything is grey grey grey At least if the screenshots had the "green LCD" color it would be a bit better...

[zpaolo11x]

And this is a sneak sneak sneak preview of how it could be with box-art... I'm not sure I like it though...

[Enkak]

And this is a sneak sneak sneak preview of how it could be with box-art... I'm not sure I like it though...

Oh I like it, looks really good actually and can work as alternative displays if people don't want to use screenshots. And noticing there the new meta data icons.

I was writing a reply before your new one arrived.

I was testing using Display method for GBA to see the crop and it looked good, better than using square option in default layout. Small print attached. But your new version with Game Boy already look better

[zpaolo11x]

Smart idea using Displays mode to have better square crop My version is better because it disables thumbnail smooth gradient and game wheel artwork, so you just get the plain box art. But then the question is, what about the game play video kicking in? In Arcade mode it looks cool, here it looks fine on the SNES (4:3 box art) or the game boy (box art is square and screen is almost square), but for the Genesis for example, with vertical box art, the display will be severely cropped.

[Enkak]

Smart idea using Displays mode to have better square crop My version is better because it disables thumbnail smooth gradient and game wheel artwork, so you just get the plain box art. But then the question is, what about the game play video kicking in? In Arcade mode it looks cool, here it looks fine on the SNES (4:3 box art) or the game boy (box art is square and screen is almost square), but for the Genesis for example, with vertical box art, the display will be severely cropped.

Those look great.

For genesis or other cases maybe the best option is a different option in "General" section for vertical art? Unsure about the video snaps working on that though.

Controlling different boxart or flyers dimensions can be hard. I'm giving a little help to the Chicuelo port regarding some extra layout options for vertical art like flyers or boxart like the NES, Saturn, PS2, etc., other for SNES and one for square art. It can get tricky and hard.

So probably best is to have extra layout options for anyone that wants them (similar to Display menu), with default one being the arcade version using snaps?

[zpaolo11x]

For genesis or other cases maybe the best option is a different option in "General" section for vertical art? Unsure about the video snaps working on that though.

I plan to do something like this: a "dummy" hidden boxart will be used to get the proportions, if it's almost square then square mode is triggered, if it's horizontal or vertical then Arcadeflow will use horizontal or vertical thumbs.
I'll ditch videos in this case, but you'll see them in the "history" page.

Controlling different boxart or flyers dimensions can be hard. I'm giving a little help to the Chicuelo port regarding some extra layout options for vertical art like flyers or boxart like the NES, Saturn, PS2, etc., other for SNES and one for square art. It can get tricky and hard.

So probably best is to have extra layout options for anyone that wants them (similar to Display menu), with default one being the arcade version using snaps?

It's not hard per se, it's just that I don't want to add another shader surface stack to dynamically generate shadows, and my shadows are only 4:3, 3:4 or square, but that should fit most cases

As far as options are concerned, I plan to do like this: Arcadeflow will always work in Arcade mode, showing console games in 4:3 aspect ratio (GameBoy will be cropped but it's ok). There will be an optional "boxart" mode that will make console games show boxarts, and arcade game won't be affected.

The issue is that ALL console displays will be affected by that choice, but I hope in the future we'll be able to have per-display layout settings.

[Enkak]

Sounds like a good plan And I guess that for consoles we can also use for now the duplicate method if needed to make some use boxart and other snaps.

[zpaolo11x]

Is console games box art supposed to use the "flyer" artwork category by default?

[Enkak]

Is console games box art supposed to use the "flyer" artwork category by default?

It really depends on your system emulator settings. You can create/have a specific boxart artwork section, or duplicate it depending what some of the layouts code need to find.

SNES example here:

Code: [Select]

artwork    boxart          ..\..\collections\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\boxart
artwork    cart            ..\..\collections\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\cart
artwork    cover           ..\..\collections\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\cover
artwork    flyer           ..\..\collections\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\boxart
artwork    marquee         ..\..\collections\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\logo
artwork    snap            ..\..\collections\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\video;..\..\collections\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\snap
artwork    video           ..\..\collections\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\video
artwork    wheel           ..\..\collections\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\logo

[zpaolo11x]

Sneak peek of Genesis console mode with vertical boxart. The code is dirty as hell, it's really driving me mad, but at least it works for horizontal and vertical boxes. I have to hack it even more to accomodate square boxes

PS: My idea of using a dummy artwork to get image size is not working since image size data is not available at the time of layout creation but only as transition_callback, so either I put all the layout creation as a function of a transition callback (a bit overkill) or I have to find a different way :O

[Enkak]

Not bad at all

And then you have cases like the SNES and others where the Japanese boxes are completely different dimension wise, going from horizontal to vertical. Since there's many good translations for Japanese games things can get crazy if you have those mixed like I have. For those special cases I chose the default mode of the layout and begone with it before going mad trying to use alternative layouts that used the boxart.